Teen Art Salon: A Protospective presents artworks made by ten alumni of Teen Art Salon (TAS, est. 2015), a Long Island City-based organization that provides resources and visibility to early-career artists ages 11 to 19. Including works both new and made during the program, the exhibition encompasses drawings, works on paper, and sketchbooks from this critical time in the artists' practices. This presentation underscores the contributions that these artists have made to New York City's visual culture, centering an underexplored period of artistic production.

Unveiling a coming-of-age story in real time within a forum designed for those experiencing adolescence, the exhibition examines the role of young people as both spectators and arbiters of cultural milieu. The artworks are arranged by three themes: Growing Pains considers physical and psychological transitions, transgressions, and interiority; Sleep Procrastination attends to dreaming, mortality, and avoidance; and No Exits explores recurring symbols of entrances and escapes, such as windows, doors, gates, stairs, and chronic internet scrolling.

Founded by Isabella Bustamante, Teen Art Salon demystifies the process of becoming an artist and advises teens on how to build a diverse body of work throughout their career, fostering a collaborative artistic community between artists across age and experience level. Since its beginnings as an experimental, drop-in open studio program a few blocks away from MoMA PS1, TAS has since become an independent catalyst for the next generation of artists. Today, TAS continues to support the long-term development of artists from adolescence to adulthood by providing young people free-of-charge art instruction and materials to establish and advance individual studio practices.